I Just Picked Up My First Fender Amp

Illsidgus

Illsidgus

Desiccated Member
I just got my first Fender amp. It looked like it came out of the Dust Bowl. It was filthy, and all the pots and the power switch were scratchy. I completely disassembled it, cleaned it inside and out and used contact cleaner quite liberally on the electronics, it looks and sound brand new now. The price...free. It is a tiny little amp, it is a Frontman. Does anyone have any experience with a Frontman? I believe it is a 15w amp. What is a 15 watt amp good for? Any info or comments good or bad are welcome.

It came with a Yamaha CP30 Electric Piano, also free, which was just as filthy. I gave it the same treatment as the amp.
 
A 15 watt amp that gives good tone is one of the most useful tools you can ever have in your home studio. Put a mic in front of it. You can get some great guitar sounds recorded without the hassle and sheer physical pain associated with recording big amps in a typical bedroom studio. I have some bigger amps that gather dust, while my 22, 18 and 15 watt amps are in daily use. Some will say you can't get a massive guitar sound from a small amp. Whether that is true or not, not every song calls for the sound of a 50 watt Marshall half stack being pushed hard.

Be cautious about plugging an electric piano into a guitar amp. The impedance might not match, and you can damage that speaker if you're not careful.
 
Robus said:
Be cautious about plugging an electric piano into a guitar amp. The impedance might not match, and you can damage that speaker if you're not careful.
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Can you explain how that might happen? What exactly does the source impedance have to do with speaker impedance?
 
If the electronic piano puts out a line level signal, then you'll probably get distortion at the preamp stage of the guitar amp. Guitar preamps are designed to take a high impedance signal. As far as I know, that will cause no harm beyond a crappy sound (others might chime in). The damage could come from driving the piano signal through a speaker designed for guitar. Keyboards can put out a lot of power at low frequencies that a typical guitar speaker isn't designed to handle. That's my understanding. If I've got it wrong, please correct me.
 
The Frontman was an entry-level solid state amp from fender. They were cheap, so they were pretty popular as a first amp for budding guitarists. I was never a fan of them, I'm much more a fan of Fender's classic tube designs.

For a freebie though, not a bad deal. Stick a mic in front of it and see what you can get out of it.
 
Robus said:
A 15 watt amp that gives good tone is one of the most useful tools you can ever have in your home studio. Put a mic in front of it. You can get some great guitar sounds recorded without the hassle and sheer physical pain associated with recording big amps in a typical bedroom studio. I have some bigger amps that gather dust, while my 22, 18 and 15 watt amps are in daily use. Some will say you can't get a massive guitar sound from a small amp. Whether that is true or not, not every song calls for the sound of a 50 watt Marshall half stack being pushed hard.
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True, but when you need that sound, your little toy amps struggle mightily. I've never in my life head of anyone looking for a smaller, weaker guitar tone.

I think the rest of your post is flawed as well, but you obviously really believe yourself because you keep repeating it, so I'm not gonna mess with it.
 
Tadpui said:
The Frontman was an entry-level solid state amp from fender. They were cheap, so they were pretty popular as a first amp for budding guitarists. I was never a fan of them, I'm much more a fan of Fender's classic tube designs.

For a freebie though, not a bad deal. Stick a mic in front of it and see what you can get out of it.
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Right. Don't expect any magic from that thing, but that doesn't mean you can't have some fun with it. And you might find a good use for it. I have a cheap SS amp that does great cleans. If I ever need great cleans, I'll stick a mic on it.
 
I had one given to me. I kept it for about a week and gave it to someone else that needed an amp.

The cleans are decent but the distortion not so good. However if you only put a touch of gain you can get a decent grit out of it.
For a practice amp, it does the job. And a free amp is a free amp. Good you got it cleaned up.

This amp however is not representative of a Fender amp. I hope it gets the bug into you and you graduate to a real Fender tube amp! Then the magic happens.

:-)
 
Greg_L said:
True, but when you need that sound, your little toy amps struggle mightily. I've never in my life head of anyone looking for a smaller, weaker guitar tone.

I think the rest of your post is flawed as well, but you obviously really believe yourself because you keep repeating it, so I'm not gonna mess with it.
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I've got a couple of tunes up right now. Gimme your critique of my guitar tone.
 
RFR said:
I had one given to me. I kept it for about a week and gave it to someone else that needed an amp.

The cleans are decent but the distortion not so good. However if you only put a touch of gain you can get a decent grit out of it.
For a practice amp, it does the job. And a free amp is a free amp. Good you got it cleaned up.

This amp however is not representative of a Fender amp. I hope it gets the bug into you and you graduate to a real Fender tube amp! Then the magic happens.

:-)
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Truth! It's real hard to beat a nice Fender tube amp. :thumbs up:
 
Ah, the old frontman... I remember mine quite fondly, actually, from before I got into their tube amps (or tube amps in general, really). If I recall correctly, the clean to slightly overdriven sound is not too shabby for SS, I particularly liked it using the neck pickup in a strat. As RFR says, this is not anywhere close to that Fender sound though.

As far as running a keyboard through it, I dunno, give it a shot...or not, but for free what's the harm in trying?
 
Actually, my aunt gave me the piano and the amp came with it. I plugged my classical guitar into it and it sounded decent, but then I am not trying to push a big beefy sound with my classical.
 
Robus said:
If the electronic piano puts out a line level signal, then you'll probably get distortion at the preamp stage of the guitar amp. Guitar preamps are designed to take a high impedance signal. As far as I know, that will cause no harm beyond a crappy sound (others might chime in). The damage could come from driving the piano signal through a speaker designed for guitar. Keyboards can put out a lot of power at low frequencies that a typical guitar speaker isn't designed to handle. That's my understanding. If I've got it wrong, please correct me.
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Hm, maybe the LF thing would happen, but I bet it will just sound crappy.
 
I've blown out small amp speakers before by running keyboards and bass guitars through them. But to be fair, I probably pushed it too hard.
 
I've got one of those 15R Frontman's that I got for free too. Only times I've ever used it was when I was going to try out an electric (Craigslist) for sale where the guy didn't have any amp, and when a guy showed up at my house for an acoustic audition and brought an electric. :facepalm: (No, he didn't pass the audition).

Don't judge Fender amps by the fizzy distortion of a Frontman. :rolleyes:
 
I've got one (also free - do you detect a theme here?). It's about as much a 'Fender' amp as those little solid state Marshall 15 watters are a '70s Marshall stack.

That being said, it is a useful thing to have around for testing cables, pedals, etc., practicing by yourself in a place where you don't have you're regular amp, or plugging a modeler into it when you don't want to use headphones.
 
notCardio said:
I've got one (also free - do you detect a theme here?). It's about as much a 'Fender' amp as those little solid state Marshall 15 watters are a '70s Marshall stack.

That being said, it is a useful thing to have around for testing cables, pedals, etc., practicing by yourself in a place where you don't have you're regular amp, or plugging a modeler into it when you don't want to use headphones.
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That sums it up rather well. :D

As long as one realizes that it is a "start up" amp geared for the first time student, your expectations will diminish.

If the name plate said "first act", you'd be like wow! But it says fender, so expectations run higher.

Speaking of logos, I accepted my free frontman simply for the logo.

I have a 74 Vibro Champ that was missing its logo, and the frontman logo was real close to the vintage one.

Hell, the logo is the best part of the amp. (Im talking about the frontman)
The Vibro Champ is awesome!

:D
 
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